Subsequent insurrections in this unhappy country too clearly prove, that the holy wrath of the church of Rome was not appeased by the blood it so profusely shed in the year 1164.

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SPAIN AND ITALY.

In SPAIN and ITALY, we are informed that "the Pope endeavoured to put a stop to the progress of the Reforma"tion, by letting loose the inquisitors, "who spread dreadful marks of their

barbarity" through these countries, and especially in the latter. These formidable ministers "of a fierce and imσε placable superstition put many to "death, and perpetrated such horrid "acts of cruelty and oppression," that most of the reformed saved themselves by exile, and the rest took refuge in the errors they had before abandoned !*

*See Chalmers's Encyclo. Brit. art. "Reformation."

FRANCE.

In FRANCE, again, "Louis XIV. having long harassed and molested "the Protestants, at last revoked entirely the Edict of Nantz, which had "been enacted by Harry IV. for securing them the free exercise of their

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religion, which had been declared irre"vocable; and which, during the expe"rience of near a century, had been attended with no sensible inconvenience. All the iniquities inseparable from persecution were exercised against those "unhappy religionists; who became ob"stinate in proportion to the oppressions "which they suffered; and either co

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vered under a feigned conversion a "more violent aversion to the catholic

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communion, or sought among foreign "nations that liberty of which they "were bereaved in their native country. "Above half a million of the most useful "and industrious subjects deserted

"France; and exported, together with “immense sums of money, those arts "and manufactures which had chiefly tended to enrich that kingdom. They

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propagated every where the most tragical accounts of the tyranny exercised against them, and revived among the "Protestants all that resentment against "the bloody and persecuting spirit of

popery, to which so many incidents in all

ages had given too much foundation. "Near fifty thousand refugees passed "over into England; and all men were

disposed, from their representations, "to entertain the utmost horror against "the projects which they apprehended "to be formed by the king for the abo"lition of the protestant religion. When

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a prince of so much humanity, and of "such signal prudence as Louis, could "be engaged, by the bigotry of his re

ligion alone, without any provocation, "to embrace such sanguinary measures, "what might not be dreaded, they asked, from James, who was so much

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"inferior in these virtues, and who had already been irritated by such obsti"nate and violent opposition?"*

This execrable persecution was termed by the papists of the times, "dragooning." The reader who may desire information upon the subject, will find an account of these truly disgusting, as well as fiend-like proceedings in the Encyclopædia Brittannica, by Chalmers, (art. "Dragooning.") The detail is taken from a French account, translated into English in the same year in which they had occurred, viz. 1686. The author of this work concludes in the following words: "These, fellow-protestants, were the methods used by the "Most Christian King's apostolic dra

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goons' to convert his heretical subjects to the Roman Catholic faith! These, and many other of the like "nature, were the torments to which Louis XIV. delivered them over, to

* History of England, James II. vol. viii. p. 243.

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bring them to his own church! And, as popery is unchangeably the same, "these are the tortures prepared for

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you, if ever that religion should be

come settled amongst you; the con"sideration of which made Luther say "of it, what every man who knows any thing of Christianity must agree with "him in saying, viz. If you had no "other reason to go out of the Roman

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church, this alone would suffice, that

you see and hear how, contrary to "the law of God, they shed innocent blood. This single circumstance shall (God willing!) ever separate me from "the papacy. And if I was now subject to it, and could blame nothing "" in any of their doctrines; yet for this "one crime of cruelty, I would flee from her communion as from a den of thieves and murderers.'

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Instead of awakening resentment in the Roman Catholic, may this burst of honest indignation kindle the spirit of inquiry. May he be led, by the perusal